


lines beneath your skin

by secondshame



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Denmark NT, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:05:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondshame/pseuds/secondshame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People are always asking Daniel about his tattoos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lines beneath your skin

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fslashexchange at livejournal (can be found [here](http://fslashexchange.livejournal.com/63981.html)).

People are always asking Daniel about his tattoos. Either they’re covered in ink themselves and they want to check out his artists’ handiwork, compare battle scars, or they’re virgin pure, skin unblemished, and they look in awe at the designs, the whorls of colours and patches of art that adorn his body.

With Simon it’s not quite like that. He’s not as covered in tattoos as Daniel is, not yet anyway, but even back when Simon’s skin was relatively unmarked he’d come to know Daniel too well to be amazed by him—by his tattoos, anyway; only by everything else. Instead, for them, the observation and cataloguing of Dan’s tattoos is like a ritual.

They’ll be in the hotel room in whatever city the Danish team is playing, and Simon will say “Anything new?” Casually, even if one of their teammates had already asked while they were hanging out and playing billiards or PES, even if Daniel had already stripped off his shirt at training to wipe the sweat from his forehead and revealed whatever art he had added since the last time they had met up. 

Daniel will nod, because there always is, and say, “Let me show you.” His new tattoos are never in places immediately visible anymore, now that his arms are fully sleeved and it is too cold for shorts and while Dan may love ink he doesn’t want it all over his face. So he’ll have to ruck up his shirt or unbutton his jeans, and things progress from there. 

+

This time, they’re back from a team dinner at some restaurant in Gdansk, two nights before a friendly against Poland. It’s the first time Dan’s been with the team in some time, left out while his shoulder recovers from the burden of the previous season, the first time they’ve seen each other in person in ages due to busy schedules and other commitments. And so, when Simon asks his usual question, Daniel has a lot to share. 

“I had some details added here,” he says, rolling up the short sleeve of his shirt to show off his shoulder. Simon leans in close to look and traces the outline with a fingernail. The top of the design is still covered, so Simon grabs the neck of Daniel’s shirt and pulls it to the side, trying to see, then gives up and lifts the hem. He pulls the shirt up and over Daniel’s head, messing up his fauxhawk in the process.

“Hey,” Dan says, laughing, reaching out to muss Simon’s blond hair in retaliation.

“Is this is?” Simon asks. He leans in again and presses his cheek against it. Dan’s skin is cool and he closes one eye to look at Simon out of the periphery of the other.

“Course not,” Daniel says, exhaling a breath of a laugh that moves the hair falling across Simon’s forehead. He pushes Simon back far enough to reach down and undo his jeans, slides them down past his knees to pile at his feet, and the tattoo on his leg is big and colourful enough that there’s no need for him to point it out. “For my son,” Dan says, which is obvious from the fact that it says Mason in the midst of the hearts and flowers, but the happiness in Dan’s voice is so evidence that Simon doesn’t mock him for it. 

“Nice,” Simon replies. He reaches to touch it, but only because that’s the next step in the routine. Daniel’s children are another part of his life, like the ring tattooed around his fingers or the letters blocked out dark on his knuckles. These are the things that dictate the infrequency of their time together, and though Simon holds no resentment, they are separate from him and he from them. 

“What else?” Simon asks, because there must be more, perhaps in the details of Daniel’s sleeves or the Viking graveyard of his back. But the tattoo Dan points to is just there—small but visible, a thin green vine curling from his hip down into the waistband of his briefs. Simon doesn’t know how he missed it, familiar as he is with the location and look of Dan’s older tattoos, except that it is inconspicuous in its simplicity.

“Let me see,” Simon demands, so Daniel pushes his underwear down his legs and off, stands naked before him. Simon is still fully clothed, and Daniel is now covered only by ink, revealed by it. The vine stretches, spirals, wraps over Daniel’s hips and down almost to his cock. 

Simon puts out a hand to touch it and Daniel says, “This one’s for you.” Simon’s fingertips fall heavy against it and he feels a tremor under Daniel’s skin, a tightening like gooseflesh before the bumps come up. Simon strokes two fingers along the path of the tattoo and watches Dan’s ab muscles contract and release. He looks up and Daniel’s eyes have gone slightly glassy, his lips parted.

“This is where you like to be touched,” Simon says. It’s not a question—he knows. He knows. But Daniel corrects him.

“This is where I like you to touch me.” 

\+ 

Later, when Simon has joined Daniel in nakedness, in satisfaction, has allowed Daniel to explore his skin as thoroughly as Daniel’s had been explored, he curls a hand around the hard angle of Dan’s hip and asks, “What is it you will do when you run out of space someday? Tattoos over other tattoos?” 

Daniel is quiet—he always is, after—but he opens his eyes, their heavy lids and light eyelashes. He smoothes his own hand down Simon’s chest, tracing the areas that are still bare. “I’ll start putting them on you,” he says. He smirks, “Would you let me do that? I could use some practise anyway.” 

Simon laughs. “No way am I letting you experiment on me.” He thinks about it, but Simon knows; Daniel knows. He doesn’t need ink to show it. The proof is deeper, under his skin, in his veins.


End file.
